Microsoft created a plugin for Firefox. It allows .NET to work seamlessly with the popular Mozilla browser. However, it also allows websites to secretly install software on your computer.

If you use Firefox and it asked you to install a .NET extension, don't do it. If you already accepted it and installed the plugin... well, you are kinda screwed. You see, Microsoft disabled the uninstall feature. Removal requires a registry hack. Just disable it, in the meantime.

A routine security update for a Microsoft Windows component installed on tens of millions of computers has quietly installed an extra add-on for an untold number of users surfing the Web with Mozilla's Firefox Web browser.

Earlier this year, Microsoft shipped a bundle of updates known as a "service pack" for a programming platform called the Microsoft .NET Framework, which Microsoft and plenty of third-party developers use to run a variety of interactive programs on Windows. [...]

If you'd read the comments in the very article you posted, you'd see the uninstall item was corrected in a February update.

Now did .NET need to be pushed to everyone and their mother? No, probably not. But it is needed for anyone using some modern websites, especially ones in ASP or with some database styles. It's a useful tool that my network uses on a regular basis.

On top of that, it doesn't give any new way for "websites to secretly install software on your computer". It's a limited language protocol that executes in a managed environment. It's exactly the same kind of thing as Java, but you don't hear Firefoxers whining about THAT being bundle installed, now do you?

Must have missed that comment. I pretty much just scanned through them. I did see the one where it says to disable it since it cannot be uninstalled. But, seeing that most people don't update their software regularly, it is something that people need to be aware of.

After a bit of research, a better discussion of the situation is here. In my haste to post (blogging is NOT my dayjob, I catually don't have that much time to devote to posting), I went with a single source known media outlet. It appears The Washington Post's research was at least as poor as mine.